Childhood Games II: Fun with Paper

So I already went over the fun to be had with paper footballs, but that got me thinking about other paper fun we had when I was a kid. Now the projects that I detail below were by far the favorite origami projects of the time. Sure paper cranes that could "lay eggs" were cool and now I know "peaceful," and you can't overlook the paper balloon, but....

Poppers
Paper poppers, just called "poppers" where I lived, were a lot of fun, but could also get you in a lot of trouble at school if your timing was bad (i.e. you got caught in the act). At my school, we only made two varieties: the rectangle and the triangle popper. The triangle by far gave the best bang, but the rectangle was a good beginner's model. But don't take my word for it, get a piece of paper, and make your own; and then please leave comments about your results. (Click through the links in the text for instructions. Oh and you don't need a newspaper for the triangle popper, an 8.5x11 piece of paper works great!)


"Chinese" Throwing StarsWe all know that the "pirates" of the 80s were ninjas. As such, we all needed to have our supply of Chinese stars. You could fold in coins and tape them up for better balance, distance, and hitting power--which of course we did. My best friend growing up, Ryan J., who lived in the house behind mine would always have a group of us playing ninjas in his pitch black basement. We would have two sides and the object was to sneak out and attack each other's bases. I am surprised no one lost an eye from the many stars flying through the air. I did have my shorts (homemade "Jams" with a dinosaur print) ripped by Ryan, who thrust his wooden sword through a gap in between the stairs and water heater (boy am I lucky that he just snagged and ripped my shorts!!!). While I am on a tangent anyway, I will mention that our love of paper stars led many of us to make metal stars in metal shop in junior high school, which were of course banned even then. Unfortunately, I never had the chance to take metal shop. That said my friend Cedric R. did and I at least got to throw the star that he had made. He had no problem throwing the star into the wall at his home, making one inch gashes...I'm sure his parents were not thrilled, if they ever found out.

Fortune Tellers
Ok last, but not least, but definitely more girly...paper fortune tellers. We as kids were obsessed with who we liked and whether they liked us, how much money we would have when we grew up, etc.; and picking off flower petals for she loves me...she loves me not, just wasn't cutting it, especially for boys...as that would be crossing the line of girlishness...no offense. So here were the rules of the game, as cut/paste from the above link:

How to Play the Game:
*Hold the fortune teller and ask a friend to choose one of the colors shown.
*Spell out the chosen color by opening and closing the fortune teller, and stop.
*Have your friend choose one of the numbers that is shown. Count out that number by opening and closing the fortune teller, and stop.
*Again, have your friend choose a number, and repeat step 3.
*Have your friend choose one last number. Then open the flap beneath that number and read your friend's fortune!

You could/can make these into a simple yes/no/maybe magic 8 ball type "tool," or just put names of people you like, the possibilities were/are endless.


M.A.S.H (Mansion-Apartment-Shack-House)
Ok just one more, since we are on the topic of grade school fortune telling...besides this one requires no special paper folding skills. I know this was a girly game too, but remember I have a sister and girly things can be fun too. Anyway, you would take a piece of paper and would write out several categories and each category would have four selections. The first category: What type of house will you live in? was the only pre-selected category, which of course was: Mansion, Apartment, Shack, House. Other categories which you could make your own choices for included:

*What type of car will you drive?
*What type of job will you have?
*Where will you live (city/state/country/planet)?
*Who will you marry?
*How many children will you have?
After all the categories were filled in, a friend would start drawing a spiral away from your view, and you had to say when they should stop. Then like counting the rings of a tree, you would count how many rings were in the spiral and that would be the number used for selecting your future. Starting from the top, you would count through the selections and your future would be the one that you end on... for example if your number was eleven you would count through the house category to find out that you would be living in a shack. Fun and simple times!

Reminiscing: Childhood Games

Pickle

This was my favorite game to play with friends while waiting for the school bus. The basic rules were that you would have two points as designated bases. You would have two kids who would gaurd the bases, who were similar to tag called "it." Other kids, were base runners who would from base to base while trying to not get tagged by the tennis ball that the "its" would toss back and forth (being tagged included being hit by a thrown ball.) The person being tagged takes the "it" place of the person who threw it. Repeat the process over and over until the arrival of the dreaded bus.

Dodgeball

Oh how fun it was on the days we got to play dodgeball in PE (or gym class, whatever you want to call it.) The rules we played by, which I believe to be the classic rules, were as follows: two teams would be divided by the mid-court line of the basketball court; you could not cross the line or you were out; if you were hit by the ball you were out; if your ball is caught before bouncing you are out; team to run out of people loses. Oh how I loved hurling the rubber balls at peoples legs, heads, and backs to limit their ability to catch the ball. And how I loved to encourage the people to throw at me since I was very good at catching the ball.

Broom Hockey or Floorball
While still on PE I loved playing broom hockey, we actually didn't use brooms, but rather had styrofoam hockey sticks with a plastic puck (but wait we did use brooms at church). I was the best goalie, but found it more fun to get out ans score goals.

Kickball and Wiffle-ball

Ahh, kickball and wiffle-ball, so much fun. As I am sure you all know, kickball is baseball played by kicking a big rubber ball instead of hitting a ball with a bat. On variant we played in gym class was when we played indoor if you kicked the ball into the basketball hoop your team would get 10 points, I remember doing it at least once. We did play wiffle-ball (with a bat of course), but we mostly used tennis balls, as you could get a lot more distance.

Flag, Two-hand Touch, and Solo Football

I loved playing neighborhood two-hand touch or PE flag football. In the fall, even when my friends were gone, you could find me in my backyard playing the football. I would through an appropriately arched ball and run and catch it. I would even play two teams, keeping downs and score by myself; each dropped ball would be a down and I designated certain points like a tree for a first down or touchdown. I would imagine winning the Super Bowl or winning the Heisman Trophy. Of course playing with friends was much more fun. (I also would pretend I was in the Olympics and would do events such as the standing long-jump in my living room...heavily influenced by Carl Lewis.)

Paper Football

Paper football deserves its own category as it is a little more unique. Starting in elementry school, the boys would fold paper into triangles that would serve as footballs. We would use a desk or lunch table as the field. You would first kick off by flicking the paper, and you would then have four tries to flick or shuffle the "ball" so that it would hang over the edge of your opponents side, thus scoring a touchdown, if it fell off the edge it was no good. After scoring a touchdown your opponent would hold up his fingers for a goal post and you would try to flick the "ball" across for an extra point. I made paper footballs to represent all NFL teams, coloring them to match helmet designs.

Quarter Basketball

This I am sure developed out of the paper football game. You would first spin a quarter and try to trap it in between your two thumbs, without letting it fall. You would of course try to spin the quarter so that it would get as close to your opponent, who would have his hands rounded into a basket, as possible. If distant you would launch the quarter into the air trying to make it into your opponent's basket hand. If closer you could do a slam dunk. Later as the game developed further, you could do fancy slam dunks by grabbing the quarter with a ring finger and pinky while not letting the thumbs to separate and then slamming the quarter into your opponents basket. This was another lunch time favorite, that lasted into the early years of high school.

Pencil Break

This favorite among elementry boys did not last long as parents complained to the school about all of the broken pencils they found in school bags...the school "cracked" down. How was it played? Well one boy would hold their pencil in between their hands and the opponent would snap their pencil as hard as they could on the held pencil. Each would take turns until one of the pencil's broke. Of course you tried to land the metal eraser holder part of the pencil on your opponent's to increase your chances of victory. The best pencils were the compressed wood that had enough glue to give the pencil extra elasticity. I believe the Eberhard Faber were the best. This game of course developed from stick break (which of course was the same game using sticks), which we still played, but less often.